July 6th, 2010
After the final audit of artists and venues that secured each other for ArtPrize 2010, the results are…
Artists from 21 different countries will exhibit, including the United States. 44 different states in the U.S. will be represented.
Note: If you were watching reports last week, you may have noticed a sightly lower number of countries and slightly higher number of states. Those numbers were pulled from a report generated a day prior to Connections closing, with hundreds of artists still left to secure venues. Artists and venues also canceled connections they decided–for whatever reason–were made prematurely. Hence, the shift in numbers has the ability go up or down.
July 1st, 2010
ArtPrize is still doing a final audit of secured artists and venues, so the official numbers will not be available until perhaps early next week. However, if you look at the artist list and the venue list now that the connections period has closed, you will see…
- 1,713 artists secured a venues (up from 1,262 in 2009)
- 192 venues secured artists (up from 159 in 2009)
With that said, over the increased quantity of artists and venues, we at ArtPrize are far more encouraged at signs that the overall quality of the event will go up a notch this year. There are more international artists coming and from more states in the US, and many more emerging artists who are rising through the ranks of the art world.
With venues, the Urban Institute for Contemporary Art put on fantastic exhibitions at their facility and the Old Federal Building in 2009. They’re back this year, and joined by other regional institutions–like the Grand Rapids Art Museum, The Public Museum, Grand Valley State University, Meijer Gardens and others–who’ve all stepped up the scale of their exhibitions this year.
Maybe most encouraging is to see places like Stepping Stones Montessori School, which is located in the farthest northeast corner of the district, use the platform of ArtPrize the way we’ve designed it to be used. They’re bringing in artists with work that enhances the experiential learning of their students. Whether or not one of those artists goes home with an award, their show will leave an imprint of the lives of the students and artists involved. Which is just the type of experience we hoped ArtPrize would become an excuse to create.
